Memento (2000) Dir: Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan’s presence in the titles sequence for Memento back in 2000 signalled something gritty and low-budget, since he had only done one film at that point, 1998’s Following, and that was produced on a budget of £6000. Such an unknown director’s name attached to the film suggests that it is lo-fi and perhaps can lead the audience to infer that it is something crime-related, particularly in light of his debut’s main themes.

The opening presents us with a scenario that we have no explanation for straight away: a hand, attached to an unknown character, holding a picture of what appears to be a bloody crime scene. As the character shakes the picture it appears to un-develop, leading the audience to wonder precisely what is going on. It takes a few moments to realise that the scene is being shown to us backwards, provoking disorientation from the audience for the moments where we are unsure what is happening, and a continuous need to piece things together when we finally understand what we are being shown.

There is a large use of props to illustrate the crime aspect of this particular thriller: for example, there are lingering shots of the Polaroid photo (a more

authentic form of photography than digital), a bullet on the floor and glasses that lay in blood. These are used extensively to guide the audience into piecing together what may have happened, meaning their brains are working more to understand the scene and possibly causing a large amount of uncertainty for the audience, and heightening the mystery.

The tone of the scene feels very clinical, in many senses, first is the way in which the shots are composed:

it feels as though we are seeing crime scene photos at one point near the end of the sequence when we are shown the aforementioned props. It is as though we are examining the scene like detectives might do, and reinforces the crime aspect of the film. But in addition to this, Guy Pearce’s vacant expression looks unaffected by the scene in front of him, again much as a detective might feel, as though it is business as usual.

Figure 1: Christopher Nolan's director credit

Figure 2: The photo at the start of the scene (top) and then halfway through (bottom)

Figure 3: Lingering shots of props or evidence

Figure 4: Pearce's emotionless expression

The scene being told backwards also marks the death of whichever character is on the floor in a pool of blood as an important narrative moment, since the entire scene builds up to it by being told in this order but also allows us to see the aftermath without it depleting the impact of the character’s death, and so the mystery is made more prevalent in the audience’s mind.

The entire concept of a build-up to this moment and dropping the audience into a situation they have no context for is something that is, although a common trope in thriller film beginnings, also a significantly effective way in grabbing the audience from the offset, and is something that holds a great deal of importance to my opening.